Blair wants EU to become superpower

TONY BLAIR enraged Euro-sceptics yesterday by calling for the EU to become a global superpower to rival the economic and political strength of America.

The Prime Minister put himself at the forefront of the debate on Europe's future by setting out a vision of the EU as a world force based on the "collective power" of its members. He unveiled proposals to impose more democratic accountability on the European Commission, including a requirement that it publish an annual agenda of its plans.

Mr Blair, speaking during a visit to Warsaw, called on the EU to draw up a "charter of competences" that would set out clearly the limits of its powers but would stop short of being a fully-fledged European constitution. In a direct rebuff to France, he rejected calls for the creation of an exclusive "hard core" of EU members and called on the EU's elected parliaments and governments to impose their authority on Brussels.

Mr Blair said: "Whatever its origin, Europe today is no longer just about peace. It is about projecting collective power. Europe is a Europe of free, independent sovereign nations who choose to pool that sovereignty in pursuit of their own interests and the common good, achieving more together than we can achieve alone. The EU will remain a unique combination of the intergovernmental and the supranational.

"Such a Europe can, in its economic and political strength, be a superpower - a superpower not a superstate." His speech, titled Europe: building a superpower not a superstate, was seen as an attempt by Downing Street to match the impact of Margaret Thatcher's Bruges speech, in which she said "no" to further European integration.

Related Articles

His chief spokesman said Mr Blair had discussed the contents of the speech in advance with Chris Patten and Neil Kinnock, Britain's euro-phile EU commissioners. But the Tories last night warned that his "dangerous posturing" would endanger Britain's relations with Nato and America.

Francis Maude, shadow foreign secretary, said: "Tony Blair has nailed his colours to the mast. Clearly, he wants to be in Europe and run by Europe. How can the EU be a superpower without being a superstate? This dangerous posturing will damage Nato and our relationship with the US."

Mr Blair's attack on France follows Jacques Chirac's call for the creation of a "pioneer group" of nations headed by France and Germany to take the lead on further integration.

Mr Blair, who has built alliances with some EU countries uneasy with France's domination of the Euro project, said: "I have no problem with greater flexibility or groups of member states going forward together. But that must not lead to a hard-core; a Europe in which some member states create their own set of shared policies and institutions from which others are in practice excluded."

Speaking to Eastern European politicians and businessmen, Mr Blair tried to draw a distinction between a superpower and a superstate. The idea of Europe as a superstate, in which politics were dominated by cross-border institutions, failed the "test of the people", he said. The basis of democratic accountability in the EU was the elected governments and parliaments of its members.

Europe and its institutions should concentrate on responding to the needs of its citizens. That included preventing the EU from "focusing on things that it doesn't need to do, the interfering part of Europe that antagonises even Europe's most ardent supporters.

"The problems Europe's citizens have with Europe arise when Europe's priorities aren't theirs. No amount of institutional change, most of which passes them by completely, will change that. The citizens of Europe must feel that they own Europe, not that Europe owns them." Mr Blair said the European Council, made up of government ministers, should publish an annual agenda, similar to the Queen's Speech, that would set out its legislative programme.

In what was interpreted as a rebuke to Romano Prodi, the EU president, who has tried to emphasise the commission's growing role in setting the pace for the EU, Mr Blair said the "clear political direction" should come from the members' elected governments. On enlargement, he called for the first wave of applicant countries, including Poland and Hungary, to be made members in time to take part in the 2004 Euro elections.

He said the expansion of the EU up to 25 or 30 members would mean streamlining the commission and introducing group presidencies. Instead of waiting their turn in the rotating presidency system to come up every 12 or 15 years, members states could team up. Europe was too diverse and dynamic for a single written constitution. But he called for the drafting of a statement of principles defining limits for the EU.

He also proposed the creation of a second chamber, made up of parliamentarians from member countries, to provide "democratic oversight".